The NRL’s Project Apollo team will meet as planned on Wednesday but a revised season structure may not be finalised until next week.
Just a day after Todd Greenberg’s exit as the NRL’s chief executive, the ARL Commission was locked in a pre-scheduled meeting for the majority of Tuesday.
Broadcast partner meetings are also still ongoing with Nine and Foxtel, as the league presses ahead with plans for a May 28 restart from the coronavirus shutdown.
The outcome of those will be crucial in determining the structure of the reworked 2020 season, which the league had hoped to be far clearer by the end of this week.
There had been some thought Wayne Pearce’s innovation committee meeting could be pushed back again, after it was originally delayed from Friday to allow for broadcast talks.
But the NRL confirmed it will still go ahead on Wednesday, with stand-in chief executive Andrew Abdo already holding a seat on the committee.
Along with the likes of Don Furner, Trent Robinson and Graham Annesley, the committee will discuss the length of the new season, a grand final date and when State of Origin will be played.
The league is, meanwhile, in talks with the NSW government and had originally been expected to put forward a pitch for the game’s return this week.
Part of that discussion will be the number of interstate teams which will be based in Sydney.
Several biosecurity measures have been discussed, including blood testing players, temperature checks and the logging of family members’ movements.
The Warriors are still waiting to have an exemption made to allow them to enter Australia with the country’s borders shut.
Players and staff will likely have to spend two weeks in quarantine on arriving in Australia, although the NRL could push for them to be allowed to train in that time.
Clubs had originally planned for their players to start training together again in less than a fortnight on May 4, although they could be made to wait until the Warriors are also able to do so.